


so you gotta fire up, you gotta let go

by myillusionsgone



Series: but we keep pushing on and on and on and on [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Peacock Miraculous, i did not expect to feel this sorry for the guy, this is the start of a series and i am selling my soul to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 16:51:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6528229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myillusionsgone/pseuds/myillusionsgone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i came so far and see it end now. — gabriel agreste, before and after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so you gotta fire up, you gotta let go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [woopsforgotadam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/woopsforgotadam/gifts).



first.

* * *

Gabriel Agreste was twelve when he returned from school to find a little box on his desk. 

The box looked strange, exciting. It looked like one of the boxes he had seen in the Samurai movie he had watched with his friends a few weeks earlier, and he approached with caution. It had hardly been a present from his parents, not with his birthday that far away. And even if they had gotten him a present to reward him for his excellent grades, it would not have been something like this. This looked like something his grandmother would have gotten him, but she had died two years before.

Of course, it could be a prank from his older brother, but Yves was not even in town because he had talked their parents into letting him attend a boarding school by the sea. Gabriel snuck towards the box and reached for a pen, poking it carefully to see if there was some kind of hidden mechanism that would make him instantly regret ever touching it. He instantly flinched back when it snapped open, bright light flooding his bedroom as if someone had opened the curtains on a sunny day.

And amidst the light, a small creature was approaching him, a feathered, purple and green creature  _ that was talking to him _ . “You’re younger than I thought you’d be,” the strange creature said with a sigh, seemingly dusting off its shoulders. “Well, you’ll do.”

In the twelve years of his existence, Gabriel had never felt this offended. He was young, yes, but that did not mean that he was merely  _ enough _ . He was smart, he was good at sports and  _ everyone  _ said that he was much nicer boy than his brother. Perfection was far away, sure, but he was  _ more than just enough, _ no matter how another was looking at him.

“Excuse me, no,  _ excuse you _ ,” he said sharply as he looked at the weird bird. Bird? It did not look like any bird he had seen before, but it had feathers and he was not going to criticise any bird for not looking like a typical bird. “You’re being rather impolite.”

“I am Shazuu,” the talking creature introduced himself with so much flourish that the hint of mockery was impossible to miss. “And I picked you.”

“For what exactly?” the boy asked as he poked the pen he was still holding into the general direction of the bird. “And just  _ what  _ are you?” 

“What I am? A kwami,” the bird — Shazuu — said drily as he floated back to Gabriel’s desk, finding a half-eaten granola bar and taking a bite before he continued to talk, mentioning towards the box he had appeared from. “More specifically, the kwami associated with the Peacock Miraculous,” he continued as he moved his face as if he was raising a non-existent eyebrow at the young boy. “Do you understand?”

No, Gabriel did not understand and as he shook his head, the bird sighed before he went off on a long-winded explanation that boiled down to:  _ if you put on this bracelet and let me do my part, you’ll become a superhero, kid _ . Needless to say, the young Agreste felt more than just a little bit out of his element. Superheroes could be found in the comics the other kids at school were always reading — they were not  _ real.  _ They were made up, they were just the fragments of someone else’s imagination. Heroes were not real. There were only men and women, doing their best. And they did this because they felt some kind of moral obligation, not because they had been chosen.

“Oh boy, you’re a thinker,” Shazuu sighed as he approached the boy again, something that seemed all too close to concern on his face. “That’ll make things interesting.”

Only that the way he said  _ interesting  _ sounded like he was truly concerned about something that was certainly true, because Gabriel Agreste  _ was  _ someone who thought about things before he did them. It was why he was a good student — and why he was always picked as the keeper when he was playing football with the other boys from their street. According to Jean-Louis, he did never make the mistake of moving too soon.

“I’m not sure what you want from me,” he admitted as he finally reached for the bracelet, testing the weight in his hand. He had hoped that touching it would either shatter the dream or erase the way everything felt surreal right now.

The bird creature angled his head, looking at him with a trace of worry as he mumbled something along the lines of “that’s why my Chosen are never that young, I don’t know how Tikki does it”, but even these words did not suddenly grant understanding to Gabriel. Then, Shazuu looked at him again and scratched his neck. “It’s a lot,” he said slowly as he reached out and poked Gabriel’s cheek, nearly as if he was trying to comfort the boy. “Usually, my Chosen are — much older, but you seem to be a perfect fit.”

The teenager was not sure what to make of a  _ whatever a kwami was  _ telling him that he was a perfect fit, but he knew that this was either the craziest dream he had ever had or  **real.** And he was not sure what he would prefer. “O-okay,” he stuttered before he squared his shoulders and closed the bracelet around his wrist, exhaling as if he had just ran for hours.

For a moment, the bird seemed to smile at him, nodding in an approving manner. “Just — do the transformation thing and we’ll see about the rest after that,” Shazuu muttered after another moment, seemingly exhausted for some reason.

“I guess it’s time to ruffle feathers?” Gabriel asked with a half grin because this was terrifying, yes, but it was also exciting and  _ new.  _ The — kwami rolled his eyes (big, brown, kind) at him and sighed in an exasperated manner before he was pulled towards the bracelet, disappearing with a flash. 

Before Gabriel could ask what was happening, bright lights and a sense of bone deep warmth washed over him. But the warmth was not everything. There was a bubbly sensation in his stomach, as if he had had too much orangina, and he slowly lifted his hands to look at the gloves that covered them — leather kept in dark shades of teal and purple. But the outfit was not all. It was as if a sense of inner peace had been pushed into his veins, right alongside a buzzing sensation that seemed to be trapped in his veins. If he had ever wondered how it felt to others when they said that they could conquer the world, he now had an answer: it had to feel like this.

* * *

 

last.

* * *

The rush of the transformation, of being Paupulo vanished quickly. That had been different, a long time ago. When he had first started to transform, the rush of being more than just what people saw, of being someone who was part of something greater, something bigger  had lasted for days. Being Paupulo had sparked his creativity when he had been twelve, had continued to enhance his sense for colour coordination until he had learned properly what colours went together and which ones did not match. 

(He had never been dressed in obnoxious, garish colours since the day the kwami had shown up in his life.)

He had loved being Paupulo when he had been a teenager, it had shaped him and it had taught him more than he could express. But when he had grown into an adult, things had gotten more complicated for him. Sneaking away to combat forces of evil, especially those who had gotten a Miraculous into their hands, had grown increasingly difficult and he had hated how he had had to watch how a new Ladybug (the shy girl who had started out shortly after him had died  _ too young _ ) and a new Chatte Noire (new Ladybug meant new Chat, that was the  **rule** ) appeared to save the day while he started to drift away.

Of course, it had kept him and his identity safe. Paupulo had made his appearances all over the globe, had never been convincingly connected to just one city. Then, back when he had been in his prime, the Miraculous holders had been more concerned with keeping their entire existence out of the spotlight, causing them to be little more than urban legends. He had kept it up, had kept evil forces all over the planet on their toes. He had kept going, even after Christine— No, this did not matter now. He had performed to the best of his abilities, he had been Paupulo even when it had cost him because he had not wanted to see this part of his life fade into the past and become nothing but memories.

But lately, the transformation had taken more out of him. It had gotten more difficult to perform the acrobatics that were required from heroes and his reflexes had slowed as well. His sight was not what it had been when he had been twenty, thirty. He was aging and although his kwami kept saying otherwise, Gabriel had known that it was time to say goodbye to a secret past that had been  **iridescent** before the memories lost their glamour.

Shazuu made his reappearance, quieter and more solemn than usually, and still bursting out of the Miraculous in an explosion of green and blue, beautiful as always. In a way, his especially effervescent reappearance could easily be seen as his final goodbye, because Gabriel would never see it again as this had been their last run through Paris.

He had argued, of course, and Gabriel had been touched by his kwami’s insistence that there was still time, that they did not have to part ways yet. But Gabriel was a realist, he knew when he was trying to delude himself into believing that there were other options when really, there was no such thing. They both knew (even if Shazuu would deny this to his last breath) that Paupulo’s best days were over, that everything that would follow now would be the desperation of an aging man who wanted his former glory to last a bit longer.

And while Gabriel was a prideful man who hated to admit his own shortcomings, he had seen that the current Ladybug and the current Chat Noir needed their version of the Peacock Miraculous. During his era as Paupulo, he had seen far too many Ladybugs and Chat Noirs rise and fall, and while he had wanted to aid this particular duo, he had found himself unable to do so as getting out of meetings to fight akuma had simply not been possible. No, if he wanted to aid the current incarnation of the duo, passing on his Miraculous and making a new effort to combine his job and his family (or what was left of it) was the only thing he could do.

Especially since Hawkmoth had  _ dared  _ to use his hypnotiseur villain to get to Gabriel directly, an event that he still felt in his bones although it had happened more than a year before. And what had been mortifying had been how he had been too focused on his son and Ladybug to pick a convenient moment to transform.

“Gabriel.” Shazuu was hovering in midair, his ancient eyes filled with softness and sadness at once. “So, that’s it?”

For a moment, Gabriel did not reply. Instead, he held out his forefinger and rested it against Shazuu’s small head, a rare smile playing around his lips. This goodbye was more difficult than he had expected it to be, perhaps because there seemed to much more pressure on getting it right, on making sure that the kwami would not leave without knowing that for the many years they had spent together, Gabriel had never had a better friend.

“Thank you, for everything,” the designer said as he dropped his hand and let his fingers rest on the bracelet that was currently shining in all colours he could possibly imagine. He had not used Peacock’s Powder during his final run as Paupulo as he had wanted to stay in the suit for as long as he could. Shazuu had indulged him, perhaps because he had hoped that the designer would change his mind on the matter.

“Thirty-three years,” the kwami muttered as he looked at the box that was resting on the desk, on the desk that was free from all designs and clutter for once. “We had a great time.”

“Pick someone young,” Gabriel said as hesitantly he opened the box with trembling hands, no matter how much he wanted to just laugh it off and put the box back into the closet and forget that he had ever  wanted to separate from his oldest friend, from the one creature that had ever truly understood the struggle of having to play too many roles at once. “Someone who doesn’t need to be brought up to speed.”

“You picked up fast,” Shazuu said as he landed on the desk, his voice infinitely warmer than it had been the first time they had met. “You were a formidable Chosen.”

“So — I was enough, in the end,” the designer said slowly as he toyed with the bracelet, wondering what would happen if he would take it off too early.

“More than that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I took the name for the alter ego from the bae this is gifted to~


End file.
